The present invention relates to a terminal for a communication network, the terminal being capable of supporting a plurality of applications and having means of communicating user messages. The present invention also concerns a system in a communication network comprising transmitting terminals and receiving terminals being capable of supporting a plurality of applications, both of said terminals having means of communicating user messages.
At present, communicators are being developed which, in addition to ordinary mobile station functions, also have data processing facilities, which enable, e.g., the maintenance of a calendar, and the sending of a fax message and electronic mail. The communicators may have or may support several different applications like organizer type devices. One type of communicator has been presented in Patent Publication U.S. Pat. No. 5,422,656, comprising a user interface having a traditional alpha-numeric keyboard-like keyboard with which it is easier to type, e.g., text messages. In the publication in question, the keyboard has been implemented by means of a touch display. However, as traditional mobile phones develop, especially as the user interface and displays develop further, also more advanced operations will be possible by a traditional mobile phone like device.
Publication WO 94/23394 presents an electronic greeting card communication system, comprising an electronic mail server for a communicator having different types of greeting cards, which can be browsed and sent to a similar communicator, for example, by using radio communication. A drawback of the system is that the greeting cards in question can only be sent to a similar communicator. Therefore, the sender should know whether or not the receiver has a communicator supporting the greeting card communication system. In addition, for the implementation of the system, an off-line electronic mail server, for storing different types of greeting cards, should be separately connected to the network for the service in question. Another drawback is that, because the system uses ordinary radio communication to transmit greeting cards, the telephone line of the communicator is engaged during transmission. By means of the communicator, presented in the publication, graphic images including hand written text can be transmitted. The transmission of such an image or a mere hand written message is quite slow due to the large amount of information. Publication WO 94/23394 only discusses the sending of information relating to one application or service, i.e. a greeting card application. As communicator-like devices have several different applications a problem arises of how to send and handle information in relation to different applications. In the WO publication a separate electronic mail server has been arranged for the specific greeting card service. However, providing a separate electronic mail server for each application of a communicator would lead to a rather complicated and expensive solution. And even then one would face the problem of how to handle information relating to different services in the terminal device, e.g. in the communicator.
The present invention concerns a terminal for a communication network, the terminal capable of supporting a plurality of applications and having means of communicating user messages wherein it comprises means for receiving user messages having data and a header relating to one of said applications and means for addressing the data to a respective application according to said header. Accordingly the terminal may readily have a plurality of different applications on such can be arranged into the terminal at a later stage. The later addition of applications can be done by direct contact of over the air contact to another device. One user message may contain data relating to one application indicated by the header, or a user message could contain data relating to several application, indicated by different headers, e.g. so that the header indicating a specific application is followed by the data relating to that specific application.
User messages contain a limited amount of information and are, therefore, quick to transmit. One type of user message is the so called short message. The invention is especially suitable to be implemented by the use of short messages. The mobile phone system according to the standard IS-136 uses a so called R data field for the transmission of similar short messages. Another type of a user messaging function known in the GSM system according to which SMS like messages can be sent as well is USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, which is more closely defined in the GSM specifications, e.g. in the following documents: TS GSM 02.04, TS GSM 02.30, TS GSM 02.90, TS GSM 03.38, TS GSM 03.40. A similar messaging form called SOC (Service Operator Code) exists in the mobile phone system according to the standard IS-136. Communication forms like SMS, R data, USSD and SOC are here called user messaging functions and the messages are called user messages despite the fact that such messages can as well be sent by an operator and not only by a user. The benefit with this kind of communication is that it does not reserve the voice call channel either at all or at least not continuously.
Similar benefits exists in packet switched communication. A protocol based on PRMA (Packet Reservation Multiple Access) for relaying packet switched information is known in mobile communication networks. It is also called xe2x80x9cPacket Radioxe2x80x9d. The PRMA is a technology for multiplexing packet formatted digital speech or data into a time divided carrier wave. A packet radio service, GSM GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) under development for the GSM mobile radio system is used as an example. GPRS is a new GSM service offering packet radio service for GSM subscribers. GPRS reserves radio resources only when there is something to transmit, allowing the same resources to be shared by all mobile stations according to their needs. Accordingly also packet radio transmissions may be used for transmitting user messages, that reserve the communication channel for only short periods.
The intention is that any user messages can be used, but in following mainly short messages will be referred to as an example. In addition to being fast to send, the advantages of a short message service can be utilized, such as not reserving the voice channel. Application related information can either be pre-stored in a terminal memory (permanent memory) or a user may store the application related information in a terminal memory (cache memory) by contacting a server by means of a terminal. Depending on the application, the user may enter user input or modify the information in the applications. In another application the information relating to an application may be sent by a service provider and the information may be such that it is not possible for the user to modify it, only to request the service provider to modify it. The information readily printed in the application can also be transmitted. An application type identifier or header is preferably added to the transmission, so that a receiving terminal identifies the short message as not an ordinary short message, but as a short message containing information relating to and intended for a specific application. The identifier can be a code in an address or a control field of the short message, or it can be a code in the message part of the short message. Because it has been realised that the short message service, already existing in the mobile station system, can be utilized for sending information on applications, the advantages are, e.g., that there is no need to establish an off-line server for sending the application related information, such as, for example, in the system presented in Publication WO 94/23394. Especially advantageous is that one and the same server, i.e. the SMS server (the Short Message Service Centre SM-SC) can be used for sending and forwarding information relating to any application, so there is no need to have separate servers for each application. The SMS server will forward any short message and the terminal will address the information to the correct application according to the header or identifier in the message. And since a short message can be sent simultaneously with a circuit-coupled connection, the sending of the application related information does not engage the terminal""s communication line, e.g., in case of a simultaneously incoming call. A network like the GSM network is maintained by several operators and usually each operator has at least one SMS server of their own. In this case naturally any SMS server or several servers may be used for the invention.
A terminal according to the present invention is wherein it comprises means for receiving user messages having data and a header relating to one of said applications and means for addressing the data to a respective application according to said header. Another terminal according to the present invention is wherein it comprises means for sending data relating to one of said applications in a user message and means for adding a header to the user message, the header indicating the respective application that the data relates to. Correspondingly, a system according to the present invention is wherein the transmitting terminals comprise means for sending data relating to one of said applications in a user message and means for adding a header to the user message, the header indicating the respective application that the data relates to, and the receiving terminals comprise means for receiving user messages having data and a header relating to one of said applications and means for addressing the data to a respective application according to said header.